Poster Guidelines

28 February to 4 March 2016 | Livingstone, Zambia

Purpose of a poster

• To communicate information and ideas

• To summarise / outline a piece of work clearly and concisely so that it is easily understood

• To promote your work

• To engage your audience and promote discussion and conversation

A great poster…

• Is simple, well-designed and attractive – first impressions count

• Can stand alone – doesn’t need further explanation to be understood

• Is readable – information is well-presented, ideas flow, avoids spelling and grammatical mistakes

• Focuses on a single message

A great poster is…

• Legible – ensures good use of font, text size and colour selection to ensure maximum legibility

• Well organised – uncrowded, easy to read, flows well from one point to the next

• Succinct – ensures your main messages are clear, prominent and brief. Doesn’t include all the details

• Makes good use of images and graphics to convey messages

Content: Title

• Short, snappy and on target

• Avoid jargon

• Never more than 2 lines

• Readable – use a font size of 40pts or more

Content: Introduction

• Provides context for your research

• Gives the background, justification and objectives of the work

• Includes the question or challenge your research aims to address

Content: Methods & results

• Method: Key information on your research design and analysis; experiments or studies undertaken

• Results: What was observed? How do the results relate to the original question?

Content: Conclusion

• What did you learn?

• Implications and conclusions

• Future work

Content: What else to include?

• Who you are and where you are from

• References and acknowledgements

• Organisational logos

• Contact email address

Design: Size & orientation

• Poster: • Size:

• European A0 33.1 inches x 46.81 (84.098cm x 118.899cm)

OR

• US poster size 36 inches x 48 inches (91.44cm x 121.92)

• Orientation: Portrait

Design: Text

• Minimum font size 35pts

• Must be able to read from 1-2 metres away

• No more than 2 font types

• Reduce word count rather than text size

• Edit edit edit! – less is more. Try to keep word count to a minimum. Don’t crowd your poster with text that no one will read.

Design: Images & graphics

• A picture paints a thousand words – when used appropriately

• Avoid complicated diagrams

• Graphics should compliment your colour scheme

• Don’t use graphics direct from Excel

• Use graphics to simplify message

Design: Colour

• Colours should compliment not detract

• Avoid bright and garish colours

• Stick to one or two font colours

• Avoid putting text on colour background (it’s really difficult to read)

Design: Colour

• Feel free to use conference brand colours

• Conference templates have the colours built in. Alternatively, use the RGB values on the right

RGB

R: 205 G: 193 B: 170

R: 194 G: 178 B: 49

R: 205 G: 93 B: 40

R: 128 G: 55 B: 64

R: 131 G: 153 B60

R: 91 G: 93 B: 97

Design: PowerPoint Templates

• You can download a PowerPoint template from the conference website (link)

Or

• Feel free to design your own – but be sure to include all the content required

Examples of good posters

Useful links

• How to create research posters - NYU Libraries

• Guidelines for scientific posters